KRUGMAN: "WE ARE THE 99.9%"

[kpete]

We Are the 99.9%
By PAUL KRUGMAN
Published: November 24, 2011


“We are the 99 percent” is a great slogan. It correctly defines the issue as being the middle class versus the elite (as opposed to the middle class versus the poor). And it also gets past the common but wrong establishment notion that rising inequality is mainly about the well educated doing better than the less educated; the big winners in this new Gilded Age have been a handful of very wealthy people, not college graduates in general.

If anything, however, the 99 percent slogan aims too low. A large fraction of the top 1 percent’s gains have actually gone to an even smaller group, the top 0.1 percent — the richest one-thousandth of the population.

.............

For who are the 0.1 percent? Very few of them are Steve Jobs-type innovators; most of them are corporate bigwigs and financial wheeler-dealers. One recent analysis found that 43 percent of the super-elite are executives at nonfinancial companies, 18 percent are in finance and another 12 percent are lawyers or in real estate. And these are not, to put it mildly, professions in which there is a clear relationship between someone’s income and his economic contribution.


..................
So should the 99.9 percent hate the 0.1 percent? No, not at all. But they should ignore all the propaganda about “job creators” and demand that the super-elite pay substantially more in taxes.

MORE:
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/11/25/opinion/we-are-the-99-9.html?_r=1&ref=opinion

[patrice]

1. Do the 30%+ tax rates start too low? $200.k incomes shouldn't be considered similar to $3million.

[Sarah Ibarruri]

2. Excellent article. Scary how the 1% lives compared to the impoverishment going on

in the rest of the nation. And it IS associated. Those that are living better, are not living better through the wave of a magic wand, but at the expense of those who are now impoverished and becoming impoverished.

[Dont call me Shirley]

7. Or the invisible hand

[Sarah Ibarruri]

9. The invisible hand of Adam Smith is choking the 99%. nt

[nadinbrzezinski]

12. You mean the one that originally came with

many caveats, including GASP regulations?

[Major Nikon]

3. Everyone who lives and breathes is a "job creator"

Jobs are created by demand, not supply. If you are alive, you have needs which creates demand which in turn creates jobs.

[vi5]

6. Bingo. Needs to be said again and again....

and again...and again...and again.

Unfortunately those with the biggest megaphones don't seem interested in saying this.

[nilram]

11. And even those who stop breathing create a few jobs, for a while longer.

So, yeah, that's all of us.

[Raksha]

13. Very good point!

[Stuart G]

4. K and R thanks for posting..nt

[Capitalocracy]

5. *ahem*

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=439x2090699#2090709

:think:

[Electric Monk]

8. K&R

42 recs here http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=439&topic_id=2376660&mesg_id=2376660

[WillyT]

10. K & R !!!

:kick: